stamp

When you are looking at art in a gallery or on a website, the ‘medium’ is generally a part of the description. For Netted by Perceptions (right), I list this as “Acrylic” meaning it’s an acrylic painting. This conjures an image of me standing in front of my easel with paintbrush in hand painting happily away. While some of this is a true image, I’m usually pretty happy and there is an easel and a bunch of messy brushes, it still paints an incomplete picture (pun intended).

Collection of interesting textures

So what am I making art with? Acrylic paint and brushes to start with, then I get a little curious and start exploring. After I get my layer of paint on the canvas, I look around my studio and see what I can use to create some texture in the paint. Some of my favorites are the cardboard from Starbucks cup rings, netting from fruit and veggie bags, sponges, even just plain paper towels. I press the textured item into wet paint. It makes a impression into the paintings and lifts paint from the spot and transfers it to the next place I press.

Tissue papers

I’ve also created more texture by painting thick lines or drips, wait to dry and painting over. Another way I create texture is embedding things into the paint such as tissue paper, other papers or even netting. I am sure to paint over these items heavily to keep them firmly on the canvas or pour Art Resin over the whole canvas to seal it in.

How about all those straight lines that have been taking over my artwork? Tape! All kinds of tape (that’s not too sticky), right now blue painters’ tape and washi craft tape are my favorites.

An assortment of tapes

I’ve also cut out stencils in shapes I wanted to repeat such as the leaves in the background of several of my paintings. Most of the time I use the stencils to mask out the background and paint a new layer for the foreground.The sails in the Sea Bound series are the same because I cut stencils out of poster board and reused them for each painting. The color of the sails is actually the background of each painting.

Using my homemade stencils has inspired me to look at other objects I can use for stencils or stamping. Just the other day I grabbed a large tomato can (from dinner the night before), painted the bottom rim and used it to stamp large circles around my canvas.

Now when you are looking at one of my paintings, I bet you’ll be able to identify some of the objects I used to create the marks. If something looks like it’s been embedded, it probably has been. The more I experiment with these, um, experiments, the more ideas I have to explore. I hope you enjoy exploring with me!